Share this article

A teenager who killed an old woman by stabbing her 40 times with a knife was wearing a terrifying horror-film style rubber mask during the attack – and then hid it before calling the emergency services, German police say.

Detectives investigating the violent murder of the 82-year-old German woman found her blood on a horrific rubber mask and a knife at her teenage neighbour's flat in Bielefeld, North Rhine-Westphalia, they said on Tuesday.

Until now, the 18-year-old paramedic – who had called the emergency services on March 29 saying he found her seriously injured and had tried to save her – had not been a suspect.

But experts soon suggested that the way that the victim's blood covered the teenager's clothes would probably have been different had he tried to revive her as he said.

A post mortem showed that she had been stabbed 40 times, local paper Express said on Wednesday.

After arresting the man on April 19 police searched his home, finding the horror-film style rubber mask and a knife – both had the women's blood on them and had been carefully hidden in his flat. It has taken until now for the blood analysis to be conducted, a Bielefeld police spokeswoman told The Local.

The paper said the suspect has said relatively little in questioning but had admitted watching a violent horror film during the night of the murder.

State prosecutor Veit Walter told the Express that that the suspect's motive was not clear and that “if he won't talk, we won't know.”

The paper said that as a 17-year-old the teenager had been involved with a local branch of the Red Cross. There he came across as “very shy, kind and engaged,” according to organiser Julia Koch.